You know the saying “if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” Normally my answer would be no, but weekend 4 was a weekend of adventure so I said yes. Except, it wasn’t a bridge, it was a mountain.
Let me explain from the beginning.
Friday night around 11 p.m. I got on the bus from hell to head to the train station for my overnight train to Interlaken, Switzerland. I call it the bus from hell because all of the other passengers consisted of drunk teens yelling and being completely obnoxious. The boys were on the back of the bus, the girls were at the front, and there I was in the middle praying that they would turn off their portable speaker and shut their mouths. When I got to my stop I ran off the bus, ready to get on my train and go to sleep. Except as we were standing on the platform we got a notification that our train has been canceled. Not delayed. Cancelled. Fortunately the intercom came on with directions on what to do because of the cancellation. Unfortunately the instructions were in German. The only word we were able to make out was “taxi” so we asked the group of passengers around us what was going on and they were able to tell us to grab a taxi to a different station in Bonn because the train would be rerouted there and arrive in the next thirty minutes. So, we ran to the taxis, got to the station with just enough time to only be standing in the cold for a few minutes, and then the train was further delayed. (At this point it’s almost comical how difficult public transit can be.)
It was about 1:30 a.m. by the time we boarded the train and I went straight for a window seat, put my headphones in, and curled up into my hoodie as much as possible because the lights were on in the train car. We got to Interlaken around 10 a.m. and even though we couldn’t check in until that evening, our hostel let us come and use the public restrooms to freshen up and lockers to the store our things. The majority of our day was spent exploring the town, eating Swiss chocolate and walking to one of the lakes. Around 3p.m., however, it was time to jump off a mountain.
The bus picked us up from the train station and brought us to the landing site where we did some paperwork and met the professionals. We then all piled into the bus and went up the mountain to a point approximately 2,500 feet high. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into, but I was about to paraglide. When the bus stopped we got out, my flying buddy handed me a backpack like thing, and we walked a little higher on the mountain to a patch of cleared grass. He laid out the parachute and told me to walk in front of it. Within seconds I was strapped in and he was telling me to walk forwards and then run - and just like that I was in the air. So it really was much less of a jump off of the mountain and more like running off of a mountain, but I still did it despite being terrified. Funny enough, though, once I was in the air I wasn’t scared at all. It was comfortable and exhilarating all at once.
That evening we went back to the hostel, checked in, and used the public kitchen to make our own spaghetti because food in Switzerland is kind of expensive. The atmosphere was fun and reminded me of camp as we were all gathered around a picnic bench serving each other food. For desert we ordered some fondue from the hostel restaurant and huddled around the TV with all of the other travelers to watch the Germany vs Sweden World Cup game. After Germany won, I grabbed my things out of the locker and got ready for bed because it had been a long and exhausting day.
The next morning we ate breakfast at the hostel and then Jess and I went into town to explore some more while everyone else went on a hike. We ate more Swiss chocolate, snuck into some of the nicer hotels, and then took a train to the top of the mountain to meet the rest of the group. A good amount of time was spent on the mountain top, especially when we got back to the train to go down and didn’t have enough franks for everyone to get a ticket. So if you ever go to Interlaken and decide to hike to Harder Kulm buy your ticket down before you go up or buy a two way ticket if you’re not planning to hike down. Eventually we all made it, though, and then we grabbed some food and went back to the hostel to hang in the hammocks and relax before having to catch another night train.
To finish off our weekend we were supposed to get back to Bonn at 2a.m., giving those of us in host home a good distance from town little time to go home and get our things and a little sleep before coming back to the station to leave for Vienna at 6a.m. However, our misfortune with the trains on Friday came in handy because we realized that if we just stayed on one of our connecting trains (instead of getting off in Frankfurt) we would end up at the lesser known Bonn station that we left from. Needless to say, we were fugitives for a few minutes as we stayed on the train for one more station, shaving an hour off of our travel time and giving us a few more minutes of sleep before our next adventure.
Sarah Bohac
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